


Maybe

by sihaiya



Series: Maybe [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Era, Canon Universe, Character Study, Multi, eruri established relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:33:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sihaiya/pseuds/sihaiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This evening the 13th Commander of the Scouting Legion isn't sitting at his desk. An outside observer, passing by, might think he's simply enjoying the beautiful day getting his paperworks done in this odd way, but that's not what he's doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own SnK, all characters and references are property of Hajime Isayama.
> 
> A bit rushed so bear with the eventual typos, but I had to get this out of my system.

This evening the 13th Commander of the Scouting Legion isn't sitting at his desk. He opened his study window, letting the sun into the room, dragged there his chair and started using the sill as an impromptu support for his papers. An outside observer, passing by, might think he's simply enjoying the beautiful day getting his paperworks done in this odd way, but that's not what his hand is doing.

In the courtyard a fifteen tanned boy with beautiful eyes and a scowl of pure concentration painted on his features is sparring shirtless with a training dummy, knuckles wrapped in bandages to avoid excoriations and sweat dripping along the middle of his shoulder blades, reaching slowly the small of his back. He's the epitome of everything that is young and with a strong purpose and his moves, in their repetitiveness, have something mesmerizing.

From his position Erwin is drowning in the view and his hand is meticulously scratching the parchment, trying to reproduce this natural wonder. It's not the first time he's doing this and he's never been able to complete one of his sketches, one time focusing on that shoulders that still have to stop growing, another on that forearms that slowly are becoming perfectly shaped, and often, so many times, trying to reproduce his expressions, from his always so expressive eyes to the crease of his lips when he smiles. He knows it's a lost cause, he knows he could never hope to put something so filled with liveliness on paper, simply like this, as if he could stop life just for himself, just to have something to cling to when his determination seems nowhere to be found again, still he can't stop trying.

He freezes when he looks up for the umpteenth time only to notice the boy staring at him. He feels unexplainably guilty when their eyes meet, but his uneasiness is swept away in the moment Eren smiles, raising one of his hands in a small wave. He barely have time to smile back when Levi's voice, coming just behind him, startle him, taking him aback.

"He's so obvious. You could have him if you only tried."

His Captain's voice is impassive, stating what he's implying as a matter of fact not worth of any more discussions, and he sighs before looking away from the outside to turn to the other man.

"Sometimes I forget how much you can be silent." Erwin remarks, not sparing another glance to the boy, a sudden feeling of having just begun to play a delicate game of chess with the other one, even if he knows by now how Levi is never playing his ways, always too much straightforward to do so.

"I wouldn't mind." The other adds, shrugging almost imperceptibly, eyes following the scene outside rather than the conversation in progress.

Erwin lets a small smirk stretch out his lips, a hint of amusement in his voice when he finally decides how to reply at the clear insinuation. "I could say the same, so why aren't _you_ trying? He worships the ground on both of us walk..."

In exchange for his jab he receives an unimpressed look that turns into something darker when Levi's gaze becomes distant for a couple of instants. "Up to now." He whispers, and the other one is not sure that those three words were meant for him to hear at all. "I already told you why, I was just wondering if you're ever going to reciprocate and tell me your motives."

Erwin shrugs, not seeing the point in hiding the obvious. He's staring again outside the windows, even if the object of his attentions is longer gone, his hands start to fasten his sketchpad and it's only when he has cleared up the sill and put everything back in one of the drawers of his desk that he starts speaking. "He could have a future, when all of this will be over he could still have a life and I'm sure he hasn't one or more old men in his dreams."

Levi barks at it, a laugh almost, but only for those who knows him enough to understand that the rasping sound is the symptom of an actual amusement. "No shit. Sometimes I think I'm going to turn deaf if he starts to speak again about the ocean."

There's a little creeping vein of fondness in his words, and Erwin actually smiles at it rather than to their content before standing up to clear the distance between them. "I've done this once already, trapping at my side something wild and beautiful who just wanted to be free." He murmurs, raising a hand to Levi's features and stilling it about an inch from him, implicitly waiting for consent, in a display of respect that has become almost an unspoken ritual between them.

"You've never done it, it was offered." He replies, nuzzling the palm of his hand with a lazy movement, closing this way the space between them.

Erwin lets the other one lead this small moment of comfort, simply tightening his grip on him and starting stroking his hair with one of his hand, slowly, like they have all the time of the world. He lets him kiss his lips unhurriedly, with a tenderness that anyone but him knows, his thoughts still lost in the previous matter to make out of this something even a little sexual.

He perfectly knows, despite their strong bond, that they're both missing something, he perfectly knows, also, who's carrying right now what they need to feel maybe a little more whole, but he also perfectly knows that they both are broken beyond any repairs and not willing to risk to break Eren too. The boy may be too knowing and too scarred for his actual age, he may be a monster just like them, and in the most literal meaning of the term, but he's also highly emphatic and in some way still so innocent...

A flick on his forehead stops abruptly his stream of consciousness, bringing him back to the present and to a not so amused Levi that is staring at him with something delicate and impalpable in his eyes that contradicts his apparent scowl.

"Stop thinking so hard, you just have to wait, maybe it will be offered this time as well." He states, cryptically, but not enough to Erwin not to understand and nod almost in relief, once again reminded about Levi's practical wisdom.

"Maybe..."


End file.
